We often hear people saying that they've had a moment of clarity without any clue as to what it means. To define it further, a moment of clarity is when you have an epiphany, spiritual awakening, or a realization that will change your life further. Depending on the person, it can be a spontaneous moment, or it can result from self-reflection actions that happen in your life. A moment of clarity often occurs during or after painful situations such as near-death experiences, trauma, or feeling a loss. When you experience these realizations, you can't ignore them because they hold the answer you're looking for. In this article, we'll be discussing everything we need to know about a moment of clarity.
What is a moment of clarity?
A moment of clarity is that one epiphany or realization that you know your life is about to change forever. It may come in the form of a light bulb idea where something significant crosses your mind that you can't just ignore.
For instance, people with a near-death experience often have the realization to change their lives and appreciate the present moment better. It's very often that they change their behavior and personality altogether because of those moments of clarity they have before the experience. When you experience that, it gives you a fresh perspective on life.
Whether it's a brand new hope or a sense of courage, a moment of clarity gives you precisely what you need to turn your life around. We don't realize how much we take for granted in life until an epiphany hits us, and we learn we've been living our lives the wrong way. Your epiphany can encourage you to make drastic changes in your life for the better and live a life you're proud of.
When does a moment of clarity happen?
A moment of clarity happens suddenly. It occurs in a moment you never saw coming or in a moment you never thought was possible. You hear stories about having an epiphany with a near-death experience or when someone loses a loved one. While these are both terrible and disastrous experiences, these are both opportunities to realize something to turn your life around.
You can never prepare yourself for the moment when you do experience an epiphany, as it's not something you plan. However, when it does come into your life, all you can do is move forward with your newfound realization and try your best to apply it in your life.
How to find a moment of clarity
1. Get away from your comfort zone
You can't find a moment of clarity without living your life to the fullest. Living your life to the fullest means being open to all kinds of possibilities, adventures, and moments, which you can't do if you're stuck in familiarity and comfort. You need to let yourself explore different experiences, even when you're afraid they can potentially cause pain and devastation
If you happen to hear someone else's epiphany, you'll know it doesn't usually come from joy and happiness but pain and loss. Experiencing a change in your life is always frightening because of the uncertainty and unpredictability that comes with it. It's necessary to experience a powerful realization that can powerfully change your life. You won't realize new things when you're living an ordinary and routine life, but you have moments of clarity when you're in an unfamiliar, new, and strange environment.
No matter how ordinary you try to be, things in life will happen to you that are outside your control. Even if you try your best to stay in your comfort zone, you might be a trauma victim, unpredictable events can occur, and you can still experience grief.
2. Follow your gut or intuition
Having a moment of clarity is all about transforming your life for the better, and one way to do that is to follow your intuition. It's essential to learn to listen to your gut instincts because it's how you know right from wrong.
It's easy to go down the wrong path because your gut and heart often want different things, making you feel torn about which direction to follow. However, when we follow our hearts, it can lead to a beautiful life, but there will always be something lacking. If you follow your intuition, you'll be moved into an area you genuinely want or need for your betterment. Your gut might tell you to break up with someone while your heart tells you to stay. In the end, leaving may lead you to a new life partner who treats you better.
You can't have an epiphany if you always go with what your mind and heart tell you to because most often than not, it's your gut that tells you what's the right path. Believe it or not, there are nerve cells in the gut communicating with the brain, so your gut feeling does sense things you subconsciously notice.
3. Meditate for a moment of clarity
Meditation is a calming breathing exercise that you really shouldn't be taking for granted. You're more likely to experience an epiphany when you incorporate meditation into your daily routine. Meditation helps you develop a sense of self-awareness and reflection.
With meditation, you're entirely aware of your thoughts, emotions, and behavioral pattern, which means you're also aware of whether you need something to change in your life.
It's entirely possible that during one of your meditation practices, a thought enters your mind with the realization that there's something about your life that needs to change and adjust for the better. Maybe you've been having the wrong set of values, or perhaps you've been too fearful in your life, and meditation allowed you to see that.
You can try various meditations via the Declutter The Mind app or YouTube channel. A good meditation video to check out for a moment of clarity is the guided meditation for clarity on the Declutter The Mind YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdcUcCbnoko
You can help clear your mind in 10 or 20 minutes each day to help you realize your epiphany. It likely won't come the first time you try. However, meditation allows you to observe your thoughts passing through instead of being led to action by them. So you'll gain control over how you act despite your thinking pattern.
4. Stay away from distractions
We're surrounded by a world full of distractions wherever we go. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, distractions are the first and last thing you see through the presence of your phone and social media. You can't have a moment of clarity when you distract yourself with something that will prevent you from reflecting and analyzing your life, such as social media (consider a social media detox), show marathons, or video games.
Even for just a little while, you need to stay away from the distractions in your life. The goal is to focus on the present moment. Your distractions can entertain you and encourage you to have fun, but they will block you from your focus and much-needed self-awareness in developing your moment of clarity. Distractions make you mindless, but present-living makes you mindful.
5. Interact with different people
In connection with going out of your comfort zone, you need to meet people of different cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and personalities if you want to have a moment of clarity or an epiphany.
You can't have a moment of clarity that changes your life if you're always around the same group of people, no matter how much you love them.
If you're an introvert, this may be harder for you to do because your energy levels get drained by being around certain types of people. However, interacting with different people allows you to have different perspectives on life, and doing so can trigger a moment of clarity from you.
An interesting experiment to try is to spend time with people who annoy you, frustrate you, or make you mad. You may gain a new perspective. For instance, behind all those annoyances or anger, you may realize that the person you're interacting with is actually in a lot of emotional pain. Your moment of clarity may open you up to practice compassion with this person, which may completely alter your relationship with them.
6. Do something you've never done before
You can't expect to turn your life around when you're stuck in your same old ways. Instead, you need to do something you've never tried doing before and have all kinds of adventures.
Life can surprise you in so many unimaginable ways, and by expanding your horizons, you'll likely realize something you can't ignore. A moment of clarity isn't created from mundane and ordinary moments, but they happen in moments you never see coming. As a result, people often have powerful realizations or spiritual awakenings when they're about to die or when something unexpected happens in their life, such as a traumatic event.
You see, people suddenly have faith when they've never believed in anything before, when they experience a miracle or when they feel unimaginable grief or loss in their life.
7. Find your sense of belief or faith
Epiphanies are called spiritual awakenings for a reason, and it's because faith is so powerful that it can change your life and turn it around. If you want to experience a moment of clarity in your life, you need to find a belief system that you hold close to your heart.
Letting yourself believe in something and opening up the possibility of something you never thought possible. You can't experience epiphanies with a closed mind or heart, so it's crucial to have even the slightest bit of faith.
8. Don't run away from your emotions
Your emotions and thoughts will always be a scary place to be, particularly in moments of extreme stress, grief, or pain. However, you must not run from your emotions if you genuinely want to experience a moment of clarity that will change your life.
Your emotions are responsible for helping your life to become better, and as overwhelming as they are, you can't shut them off. Distractions will have the opposite effect when you're trying to awaken yourself, as distractions will shut your feelings off and repress them completely. You need to be open to feeling your emotions to change your life.
Running away from your problems is a trauma response. Dealing with difficulties headfirst can be painful. However, whether you go through the route of therapy or some other professional type of help, you'll be able to make the changes you need to get yourself to a point where you can look back on the suffering you went through and move forward from it.
9. Do a good deed a day
When you're in a lot of pain or your suffering is out of control, consider doing an act of kindness a day. Doing a good deed every day can help you take your focus off your suffering and alter your train of thought. Instead of reliving your trauma or horrible experience, you'll be thinking, how can I cheer someone up today, or how can I make someone else's life better.
It can be as small as wishing someone a happy birthday before telling you it's their birthday or complimenting a friend, family member, or coworker out of the blue. So there's no cost needed to be kind to someone.
After about eight months of doing a good deed a day, you'll notice you've changed your relationship with the pain because you've developed a new purpose. You'll also likely see that you're suffering less because you're not repeating the same negative thoughts every day. And when you realize this, you'll have your moment of clarity.
10. Go for long, solo walks for a moment of clarity
Whether you love going for runs or long walks, stepping out into nature alone is a great way to have a moment of clarity. Many ancient philosophers would spend their time thinking while on long walks. It's almost like how all your good ideas come in the shower.
When you have a moment to yourself, that's when your brain starts to compile the patterns together. You'll notice new ideas emerge, realize different perspectives, and forge forward with your epiphany.
Conclusion
In this article, we shed insight into everything you needed to know on having a moment of clarity. It's incredibly normal to have these moments where you can't just look back and live your life the way you used to. These enlightening epiphanies exist to help you live your best possible life. You need to broaden your mind and learn to practice self-reflection if you want to experience moments of clarity that encourage you to turn your life around.
